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DOBELL COLLECTION 



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POEMS, 



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POEMS 



BY 



SARAH JANE DUNN. 




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PRINTED FOR THE BENEFIT OF 

THE AUTHORESS. 

1870. 






CHISWICK PRESS :~ PRINTED BY WHITTINGHAM AND WILKINS, 
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. 




PREFACE, 




HE following poems were 
written by a little village 
girl of the name of Sarah 
Jane Dunn, deformed by spinal, and 
suffering also from heart disease, 
who has received no education be- 
yond that supplied by an ordinary 
charity school. The first poem was 
written at the age of sixteen, to 







PREFA CE. 



the memory of her sister, a lovely 
child, who died at the age of ten 
years from blood poisoning, the 
result of adjacent sewage being 
allowed to percolate into a public 
well used for culinary purposes. 

In the early part of the year 1868 
this fearful and highly contagious 
disease broke out in the village of 
Wormley, Herts, and continued for 
many months spreading consterna- 
tion among the poorer class of its 



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PREFA CE, 



inhabitants, several of whom sunk 
under its influence. 

Of the victims who narrowly es- 
caped death was the mother of the 
authoress of these lines. When ap- 
proaching convalescence, her younger 
daughter was sent to Wormleybury, 
the seat of Horace Smith Bozan- 
quet, Esq., about a mile from her 
home, for a portion of the soup he 
was in the habit of providing for 
the poor of the neighbourhood. On 





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PREFA CE. 

her way back she was overtaken 
by an old neighbour, who described 
rather minutely how a woman had 
been trampled to death by a bull 
in an adjacent field. 

The effect on the nervous system 
of the child, probably in an in- 
cipient state of disease, was so 
powerful that she rushed home in 
a state of great terror and excite- 
ment, when the fever became fully 
developed ; and, although medical 







PREFACE. 



aid was quickly employed, her case 
was pronounced hopeless. At the 
end of a week lockjaw intervened, 
which rendered her speechless, and 
at the end of a fortnight she had 
ceased to exist. 

From the commencement of her 
attack she felt convinced that she 
had no chance of recovery ; but, 
so imbued was her mind with the 
glories of a future state, the result 
of a strictly religious training on a 




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PRE FA CE. 



highly imaginative intellect, that the 
contemplated change appeared to 
afford her satisfaction rather than 
regret. 

A short j;ime before she became 
speechless she had her family as- 
sembled in the presence of several 
ministers from the training college 
built and endowed by Lady Hunt- 
ingdon at the adjacent village of 
Cheshunt, who were in the habit of 
officiating in the chapel at Wormley, 



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PRE FA CE. 

whose services they regularly at- 
tended. Her admonitions to each 
member of it were so beautifully 
conceived, and expressed in lan- 
guage so pure and appropriate, as 
to call forth from one of the rever- 
end listeners the remark, that " she 
seemed more like an inspired than 
an ordinary child." 

From the shock to her feelings 
by the loss of her younger sister' 
the elder one has never rallied. 




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PRE FA CE. 

Having been an invalid from infancy 
she has, since that event, given way 
to a dreamy lethargic state of exist- 
ence, under which her infirmities 
have increased so rapidly that only 
a short time is likely to elapse be- 
fore she will be placed by the side 
of her little idol. 

Her talent had hitherto been un- 
known or unrecognised. Being of 
a timid and retiring disposition, with 
a great propensity for secretiveness, 



PREFA CE. 



she would never allow even her 
mother to see her writings, who was 
however aware that she was in the 
habit of putting her thoughts upon 
paper, when she could do so un- 
observed. 

A short time since, by a piece of 
oversight, the verses to her sister fell 
into her mother's hands, who took 
them to a lady, a friend of mine, 
who had treated her with great 
kindness and sympathy during va- 



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PREFA CE. 



rious family afflictions. She was so 
struck with their merit that she 
asked my opinion of them. Being 
equally impressed with their singu- 
lar beauty and originality, I thought 
they might be turned to some ac- 
count for the benefit of the little 
sufferer. To this proposal the child 
gave a very reluctant consent, ob- 
serving that she could not conceive 
that ladies and gentlemen could take 
any interest in her writings, and 



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PRE FA CE. 

that she had intended her parents 
should only have seen her papers 
after her death. 

I beheve no one can read these 
verses without deeply sympathising 
j with this fragfle little being, who 
seems to have been endowed by the 
Almighty with talent above the 
average bestowed on his creatures in 
general, as a' means of consolation 
while bearing more than an ave- 
rage amount of hqman suffering. 





PRE FA CE. 



Whether, with a sounder consti- 
tution, a better education, more 
extensive reading and a wider know- 
ledge of the world, she would have 
produced works of a more volu- 
minous character worthy of being 
preserved, may be open to doubt. 

Her efforts hitherto have been 
confined to scenes of a domestic 
kind, and within her own expe- 
rience. These she has described 
with an intensity and refinement of 



PREFACE. 



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feeling, and a command of lan- 
guage quite extraordinary, consider- 
ing the circumstances in which she 
had been placed. 

The second poem, entitled "Star- 
light," written in memory of an 
infant brother, although character- 
ised by religious thoughts of great 
beauty, is wanting in the singular 
pathos and power of imagination 
shown in the lines to her sister. 

My leading motive for printing 






PRE FA CE. 



these compositions, which I think 
too good to be allowed to perish, 
is to raise the means for supplying 
the author of them with the many 
little comforts necessary in her un- 
fortunate condition, while drifting 
out of existence, and which her 
parents cannot afford to supply. 

When I mention that her father 
is a labourer on one of the tele- 
graph lines, at very low wages, and 
that her mother adds to their joint 



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PRE FA CE. 



means with her needle — an imple- 
ment of industry which can rarely 
be put to very profitable use under 
the most favourable circumstances, 
still less when confined to the divided 
patronage of a small village — it will 
be evident that such united gains 
must leave it a hard struggle to 
provide the merest necessaries for 
themselves, this sick child, and other 
children. 

In naming half- a -crown as the 





PREFA CE, 



price of this tiny volume, I am 
aware that I propose a sum beyond 
what is usual if mere bulk were 
taken as the test of value ; but I 
appeal only to those who are willing 
to recognize and reward talent and 
merit in adversity, and to whom so 
small a sum is not a consideration. 
I have not placed it in the hands 
of a publisher, as no firm of high 
standing would consider so trifling 
a commission worthy of attention, 



PREFA CE. 

and my great object is to hand to 
its authoress, as quickly as possible, 
any proceeds of its sale I may re- 
ceive undiminished by trade allow- 
ances. To any one who may be 
willing to assist me in this object, I 
shall have great pleasure in sending 
a copy through the book -post on 
receiving thirty postage stamps. 

Henry Shaw, F.S.A. 

103, Southampton Row, 

Russell Square, 
April, 1870. 






MY SISTER. 

ID you ever see her — 

The little fairy sprite, 
Who came glancing through 
the household 
Like a ray of golden light ; 
Whose little feet kept dancing, 

Never weary, until eve 
Threw its purple shadows o'er us, 
And her good-night kiss she gave ? 







MY SISTER. 



Did you ever see her, 

With her floating curly hair, 
As she gladly ran to meet us, 

Looking like a rosy fair? 
As she greeted us with kisses, 

'Twas the sweetest welcome home ; 
To hear her bird-voice lisping, 

" Oh,' I am so glad you've come ! " 




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And did you ever see her, 

With her eyes of bonnie blue ? 

They were sometimes fill'd with tear-drops. 
Like daisies wet with dew. 




AfV SISTER, 



Often they were laughing, dancing, 
Shining, twinkUng, bright with mirth, 

As she told some little story 
Of her kittens on the hearth. 

And you did not see her 

When those pattering feet were still, 
When the little hands were folded, 

Not by their sweet owner's will ; 
When the eyes were closed so gently, 

And the soft and curly hair ^ 

By the hands of friends was parted 

From her forehead pure and fair ? 




MV SIS T Eli. 



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And you did not see her 

When they closed the coffin Hd, 
And our little fairy darling 

From our sight for ever hid ? 
With her going went our sunlight, 

From that hour 'tis ever gone ; 
Can we say, with truth and calmness, 

Not our will, " but Thine be done ?" 




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STARLIGHT. 




H ! do let us come to the 

window to-night, 
And watch the stars shining, 
so lovely and bright ; 
How they sparkle like gems in the dark, 

dark sky ! 
Oh ! do come and see them, so very, very 

high. 
But, above the stars, and above the moo]i. 
Up there, is our own Httle Baby gone. 



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STARLIGHT. 




Our own little Baby, that we loved so 

well, 
And wanted to keep him with us to 

dwell. 
His face was so fair, and his eyes so 

bright, 
That we could not believe he was lost to 

our sight ; 
But our Saviour called him, to sit near His 

Throne, 
So, up there, our dear little brother has 



gone. 




STARLIGHT. 



We saw him placed with a sheet o'er his 

head : 
Dear Baby will never wake up here, we 

said. 
So we gathered sweet lilies, and roses • 

fair, 
To strew in his coffin, when he was laid 

there. 
Oh ! it was a sad day, when they took him 

away, 
To be laid in the grave till the last great 

day. 




STARLIGHT. 



His soul does not lie in the dark, cold 

grave, 
His pure little spirit has flown up 

above, 
Has gone to the home *' of the King of 

kings," 
Where our little lamb as an angel 

sings : 
And there, when life and its trials are 

passed, 

May parents and children all meet at 
last ! 




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CHISWICK PRESS :— WHITTINGHAM AND WII.KINS, 
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. 



